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However, Harper and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford held their own meeting on the issue on Tuesday, snubbing Premier Dalton McGuinty, who had asked for all three levels of government to be at the table for a discussion.

Harper was light on details about his meeting with Ford at 43 Division in Scarborough. He said they talked of their “joint determination” to tackle gun crimes.

“We discussed the range of the criminal justice measures before Parliament and the necessity of making those stick,” Harper said. “I made specific suggestions to the mayor, as he did to me, and we are both going to look at additional measures we can take.”

After Harper’s motorcade had left, Ford climbed into his SUV in a secure police parking area and drove quickly past waiting reporters and residents who had hoped to speak with the two leaders.

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In a two-paragraph statement, Ford later said they had a “very productive conversation” and “shared a number of ideas that will be followed up in the next weeks and months . . . to make sure we have the tools in place to better prevent gang violence and protect the public from criminals.”

The meeting, and one between Ford and McGuinty at Queen’s Park on Monday, followed last week’s deadly Danzig St. shooting that killed two innocent people and injured 23 others. McGuinty pledged to make funding for the TAVIS anti-gang police unit permanent and pledged future action to attack the societal roots of the problem.

Harper told reporters in Oshawa his government has introduced harsher sentencing laws recently and that recent events show they are needed. A big part of reducing gun crimes is trying to stop illegal weapons coming across the border, he added.

Harper denied union claims that government cutbacks are making things worse at the border.

“This government, through the border action plan with the United States, is literally investing hundreds of millions in extra dollars in security along our border,” he said at General Motors in Oshawa. “It is one of three principle things we are doing as a government in trying to deal with crime, particularly gun crime. One is, of course, much tougher penalties for gun offences.”

Some courts have attempted to strike down the tougher Conservative penalties, he added.

“But I think these events in Toronto underscore why these penalties are essential,” he said. “I certainly call on the courts to take these penalties seriously. This is not a theoretical problem.”

There is also a bill before Parliament right now that will make it easier to deport “non-citizens who involve themselves in criminal activity in this country,” he added.

Ford has also mused about tougher immigration laws.

Though not invited to Tuesday’s talk with Ford, McGuinty said he spent time with Harper at General Motors, having their own chat about crime.

He asked if there is anything more they could do to crack down on illegal guns coming in from the U.S., and Harper assured McGuinty he is going to “take another look at that,” the premier said.

“We are all seized with a greater sense of urgency,” McGuinty said. “Crime had been going in the right direction in terms of statistics. Obviously, there is more for us to do.”

Residents who had waited outside the police station to speak to Ford and Harper about how to help their neighbourhood saw only their black cars flash past.

Neals Chitan, a motivational speaker who lectures students on topics including defusing potentially violent disagreements, wanted to tell Ford to abandon his more-police approach and stop rejecting social programs as “hug a thug.”

“These young boys need a hug, man, they don’t have dads in their lives,” Chitan said. “So if the mayor would get off his high horse and come to vulnerable communities that he’s talking about, and put his arm around a thug and say, ‘Boy, I believe in you, you can make it,’ (it’s) probably going to work better.”

Rose Marie Riley carried a 2010 newspaper clipping about the unsolved fatal shooting of her brother, Kevin Williams, in his Lawrence Ave. E. apartment in March 2010. She wanted to ask Ford to increase police manpower.

“I do believe if they had sufficient manpower the unsolved murder cases — my brother is one of them — would be given more attention,” she said.

Chris Bouchard, a manager of a social services agency, was handing out small red ribbons he and his family made to give to residents to honour the pair killed on Danzig St. and to take a stand against violence.

“We felt like we needed to do something and take a stand ... people are afraid,” both on the more affluent east side of Morningside Dr., where he and his three young children live, and closer to the shooting site, he said.

Michael Bunce, a retired geography professor who has lived in the area for more than three decades, took a ribbon but urged residents not to let Ford’s “outrageous” talk of thugs and gangs make them “paranoid.”

He said Harper and Ford should be focusing on maintaining funding to youth opportunities programs shown to reduce violent crime in the long run.

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